Holy Living

Holiness is such a frightening word for most church folks.  Preachers tend to avoid it except in the most casual of references.  Not even in my own denomination where holiness was in the beginning a hallmark word and teaching is it heard much.  It seems that even those of us ordained in the spirit of John Wesley have mostly forgotten about it.  The Apostle Peter made it clear in his letter to the church that those who trusted in Christ were called to live holy lives.  Halfway through the first chapter we hear him sounding that word which is so strange to today's church, "...as He who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy."  (I Peter 1:16)    

Holiness is our birthright.  Holiness is our heritage.  Long centuries ago it became orthodox to declare that the birthright and heritage of humankind was sin.  Born in sin was our birthright and living in sin was our destiny.   When we pause for a fresh look at the first chapter of Genesis, we are caused to see a different reality.  When the final words of creation have been spoken, the Word which is declared to be the voice of God declares, "God saw everything He had made, and indeed, it was very good."  (Genesis 1:31)  The Word does not simply say, "It was good."  It says, "It was very good."  It is hard to imagine these words being spoken by a God who knew at the outset that a part of His creation was tainted by the power of evil.   

We have missed something very important by buying into the word that we were born to sin when, in fact, we were born to be holy as our Creator is holy.  Certainly, something has gone wrong.  We have forgotten our roots are in a Garden.  We have lost touch with who we were created to be.  We have submitted ourselves to a power subject to the power of God instead of submitting ourselves to the God who has all the power in the universe.  Never think holiness is impossible.  We were created for holy living, not sinful living.